Showing all posts tagged Republicans

This was the week of rouses and houses. Trump called a bipartisan meeting from Congress at the White House and, to the surprise of many, much of the meeting showed on video. Everyone seemed to get along. Viewers could see real, actual video of leaders in real, normal conversation. It was somewhat unusual and not the least bit jarring.

Then began the rouse and purported fake news. The Wall Street Journal is accused of reporting that Trump claims a good relationship with Kim Jong Un rather than that he would have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. This was one of the more obvious misreports. Another included Trump speaking vulgarly about unfortunate nations in his bipartisan meeting at the White House.

While there is no recording of his comments to members of Congress, there is a recording of what Trump said to the Wall Street Journal, which so far has refused to change the disputed quote.

Whether Trump actually spoke the dirty word as reported is left up to a whosaidhesaidit argument on Capital Hill. The big change: Republicans actually spoke in Trump’s defense, that he didn’t use such words. That should be notoriety enough, when someone receives support from his own enemies.

Then, there was the rouse in Hawaii with a false invasion alarm. Don’t worry, Hawaii will think through what any Product Manager worth half of his salt would have drawn-up for a product roadmap well in advance. They will make it harder to press the “panic” button and equip their system with a “cancel” button to turn off the panic. Of course, it was all an accident and a big misunderstanding, nothing anyone needs to lose a job over.

In fact, the slew of rouses that trailed after the video of the president getting along with leaders in Washington was all a complete and coincidental “aligning of the planets”, such a celestial event that does happen in nature, such as blue moons and Halley’s Comet, except that the unusual string of rouses itself doesn’t seem to be worth covering in the press—at least not elsewhere.

Obama’s legacy will not be destroyed by repealing his health care plan.

Of course, it must be repealed and/or replaced since he himself would not allow it to be enforced.

Repeal and Replace voters shout, “Give us something that works!” while Obama supporters shout, “Don’t you care about children?” It’s that whole “talking about two different things, pretending we’re talking about the same thing”, deal. One side argues the label while the other side disputes the label’s accuracy; everyone wants good health care.

…And, that’s what Obama gave us.

Before “Obamacare”, Americans would not agree on whether the nation needed to nationalize health care. Democratic voters hailed the system as broken—which it was. Republican voters hailed their old song—everything government gives it first takes, then never does as good of a job.

But, with Obamacare being passed—even though it was so terrible that Obama himself suspended its enforcement—the nation finally agreed on one thing: We need to nationalize health care.

So, Democratic and Republican voters agree and they don’t even know it. Republican and Democratic politicians agree and the people never noticed. Shouldn’t that make Democratic voters panic?—that Republican politicians are advocating for Democrats. Why don’t Republican voters remember their own concerns two decades ago, during the “Hillarycare” debates, that “Hitler first nationalized health care.”

The nation’s health care system is broken. Frivolous lawsuits are among the largest culprits—and most ignored. Everything needs some form of regulation, which was an argument in the Declaration of Independence in the first place—”laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”

But, there remains the argument from history. Taiwan nationalized health care over a decade ago. It was well researched, but now is in trouble. Nazi Germany did happen to do the same thing.

For some reason, historically, nationalizing health care seals the doom of a nation. Maybe it’s “bread and circuses” in disguise. This is a warning to the United States: Obama succeeded, the nation will finally accept nationalized health care.

Democrats and Republicans will work together, while the voters still think they are fighting. No one advocating “Trumpcare” explains why this will be the first nationalized health care program in history not to destroy a nation.

As good as fixing a broken system is, something is not right about the health care debate. Great and wonderful as it is, nationalized health care could also be the herald prophesying the end of the United States if for no other reason than that we needed it.

How will the nation solve health care? Republicans in Washington don’t know what to do, yet. Google and Amazon argue for first chance to tell governments that they are irrelevant. Governments don’t know what to do, yet. Foreign monkeys attack in Florida where officials don’t know what to do, yet. A man in Alabama shoots an 820lb foreign wild boar in his front yard and officials think he did the right thing.

Well, at least with wild pigs in the front yard, Alabama knows what to do.

Donald Trump has been and always will be a business man at heart. His interactions with Comey reflect a boss gently steering one of his top employees. But, Washington doesn’t work that way. The president can fire an FBI director, but he may not steer him. Many Americans will see this as an “endearing and harmless mistake”—evidence that the nation finally has a president who doesn’t think like a lawyer. Trump is guilty of thinking like the people rather than an old stone that has sat in the beltway so long that it looks like a pile of moss.

In his testimony, Comey verified what we already knew: Russians did not meddle with cast votes or vote count. If there was voter fraud, it wasn’t from Russia.

So, there was no “Russian hack” of the electoral process. There were hacks during, after, and before the election, along with a lot of other events that didn’t make the news. So, why the big news?

The news media couldn’t not cover it. They hyped it. They had to cut into profits to pay for it because they had gotten themselves in too far not to. Pictures of Comey and a scene with the press taking pictures of the press taking pictures proves that there’s a lot of press, something the press still needs to prove these days—especially with Fox News having cannibalized itself right out of first place.

Moderate Republicans and mainstream Democrats work on the same basic ethic: effort wins. Republicans want the people to see that they are “trying”, but they won’t do anything. If the Republicans took action it would be a first.

Likewise, Democratic voters are enamored with the Comey hearing. Comey is looking Trump in the eye. He is going to go say things. That’s courage. That’s really bold, and stuff. In-yer-face, toothless, uber-rude bravado is much more important than actually winning—at least when you can’t win. To a young ultra Liberal, boldly accomplishing nothing is much better than winning anyway, that is if you’re still angry about having lost.

America is seeing a lot of in-fighting, so we are led to believe. Some of it is purifying while some of it is foolish. Some is real while some is over-reported.

Reporting would have us believe that Trump’s administration is divided. Little be it known that Lincoln packed his own cabinet with opponents in the Republican primaries. Some competition isn’t exactly bad. But, we still won’t know the whole story for at least two years.

Bill O’Reilly’s career is all but over. The big question is about timing. Roger Ailes resigned about nine months ago amid accusations because he didn’t want to be a “distraction” at the network. Now, accusations against O’Reilly have been long floating like feathers of a pillow emptied in the streets. But, only now are they surfacing. Why? Being the “network for Conservatives”, Sarah Palin is right. Republicans are a “party of cannibals” and, now, that same in-fighting narrative is being reported in the White House.

While the Conservative voters don’t want anything to do with a “party of cannibals”, the establishments that depend on them—Fox News and the RNC being at the front—don’t seem to get that message. O’Reilly is Catholic. Conservatives are often Christian in some form or another. Forgiveness is part of their model. Fox News and the Republican party would both be wise to denounce their tradition of socially cannibalizing. Fox News doesn’t answer to CNN and NBC audiences, it answers to its the Fox News audience. If O’Reilly resigns, it’s the beginning of the end for the Fox News Channel. If Bannon resigns, it’s the end of the Republican party.

But, that’s okay. Another news network and another political party can always take their place. Maybe that would be best anyway.